Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky dismissed allegations from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, of impropriety in the Mississippi Republican primary — but noted it’s an issue for state officials to decide.

“I assume the people in Mississippi will look at what ever complaints are filed,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday when asked to comment on Cruz’s call for an investigation in to voter fraud. “That is what typically happens in a post election situation if there are complaints filed they are dealt with at the state level.”

“I think it’s pretty clear who won. Sen. [Thad Cochran, R-Miss.,] ran a very successful runoff campaign and got the most votes,” McConnell added. “But anybody is entitled to contest the outcome and that well may happen in Mississippi.”

Cochran defeated state Sen. Chris McDaniel by more than 7,000 votes in the GOP runoff on June 24. The senator did so, in part, by reaching out to African American voters, who tend to vote for Democrats in general elections.

Back on Capitol Hill, the Cochran-McDaniel feud has become a proxy fight between McConnell and Cruz. McConnell backed the incumbent, Cochran. Cruz, a tea party conservative, previously supported Senate Conservatives Fund, which backed McDaniel.

McConnell’s comments come after Cruz was a guest Monday night on Mark Levin’s radio show where he said that allegations of voter fraud should be investigated and prosecutions should follow. Cruz blamed establishment Republicans for orchestrating the Cochran strategy.

“What we know at the outset is that Chris McDaniel won a sizable majority of the votes from Republicans who voted in the runoff,” Cruz said. “But the DC machine spent hundreds of thousands of dollars urging some 30,000 to 40,000 partisan Democrats to vote in the runoff, which changed the outcome.”

“All of us want to grow the party,” Cruz continued. “But what the DC machine did was not try to grow the party. Instead, the ads they ran were charged false attacks and they were explicit promises to continue and expand the welfare state. And nobody has suggested that the Democrats who voted in the primary will vote Republican in the general election. They were actually recruited to pick who the Republican nominee was and that is unprincipled and its wrong.

“But even more troubling [is that] in the past week or so, we have serious allegations of voter fraud,” Cruz said. “And I very much hope that no Republican was involved in voter fraud. But these allegations need to be vigorously investigated and anyone involved in criminal conduct should be prosecuted.”

More from At the Races

McConnell is as big a thug as Cochran, the other Rinos who were behind the immoral campaign. And the Dems either played the establishment to use them for further aid (you owe us) or the gang behind the plot are truly no different than those across the isle who helped. Question: Who is going to jail for double voting and vote buying?? This is going to continue corruption of voting at an expanding rate. Are we no longer America????

The sad losers complaining about this election result are anything but conservatives.

Layla

This isn’t about this election. It is about what both political parties have become. One stands strongly for socialism/communism and the other for corporatism. BOTH MUST BE VOTED OUT.

teapartyidiots

You brought up True the Vote, that makes you a hysterical tea bagger.

Layla

Odd, you are the only one sounding hysterical here…

daddyoyo

Since government is the only possible check on unlimited corporate power, I would like to know what you imagine a 3rd alternative could be.

mike077

Mississippi changes everything. McConnell MUST be defeated in November. I used to respect him, but no more. I say this as a conservative Republican. Before we can confront Obama and save America, the party has to be purged of people as corrupt this. For him to defend the Cochran travesty is the last straw. I hope Lundgren-Grimes defeats him in November. And, I have a sneaking suspicion she will.

Pragmatic Conservative

McConnell said the state should verify the validity of the election! Do you oppose this?!? Why is it that Tea Partiers claim to believe in the Constitution but reject the rule of law and the will of the voters anytime they don’t get the result they want? There is no legal evidence that the MS vote was fraudulent, other than disgruntled McDaniel supporters claiming it was. There is nothing wrong with Democrats voting in an open primary when that is what state law allows. I, as a life long Republican, have voted in Democratic primaries when I knew the Republican could not possibly win because I wanted to defeat the most liberal Dem candidate. Should my vote not have counted?

mamasue54

Thad Cochran’s Senate Enablers

July 03, 2014 Print Friendly

Here is the complete list of Republican senators who contributed to Cochran’s campaign as well as to his super PAC.

Please contact these senators and tell them to stop funding candidates who run on liberal issues and use race-baiting tactics to get Democrats to hijack Republican elections.

* These figures include funds given to Thad Cochran’s campaign and to the super PAC supporting his campaign.

If a Republican candidate can’t win a primary without race-baiting and courting Democrats with liberal policies, they should not be the Republican nominee.

And nobody should fall for the argument made by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) that Senator Cochran broadened the Republican base by reaching out to black voters.

Senator Cochran and his allies joined the Democrats in promoting liberal policies and calling conservatives racists. He grew the Democrat base, not the Republican base.

Robbins Mitchell

The only thing that is “clear” is that Haley Barbour pimped out his boy Cochran to a bunch of black Dems for a gang bang at $15 a pop….now they think they own him….which explains how he “accidentally” wound up at a Democrat luncheon instead of the GOP luncheon after he got “lost”…he was just trying to go home,poor thing